


Zero Day

by Chancy_Lurking



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Androids, Computer Viruses, Emotions, Everybody Lives, Existential Crisis, Fake Science, Fear of Death, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Immortality, M/M, Nobody is Dead, Previous Suicidal Ideations, Shippy Gen, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-27
Updated: 2018-11-27
Packaged: 2019-09-01 06:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16760191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chancy_Lurking/pseuds/Chancy_Lurking
Summary: Point is, Hank Anderson is a damn good detective, but he didn’t even need to be to realize he’d made some kind of mistake when he asks, “Anybody got a clue who the Zero Day Breakers are?”Every android in earshot goes very still, LEDs briefly flashing yellow. Except for Connor.Connor whips around to look at him so quickly, Hank winces for his plastic tendons, LED spinning a constant yellow. “Why are you asking that?” he says, a little too quickly to sound innocent.(Androids are new to grief and are doing what they can to live with it. Hank can't exactly fault them that.)





	Zero Day

**Author's Note:**

> Guess what I did instead of sleeping or working on NaNoWriMo or any of the other things I should've done tonight! Spur of the moment fanfic, you're damn right!!
> 
> I finally watched Detroit: Become ~~Existentially Terrified~~ Human and I got fixated and got to thinking about death. So I tried to fix it so I can sleep in peace.

Hank didn’t get to be a good detective drinking himself into a coma every night, that happened later and has since—mostly—resolved itself.

It ain’t like he’s the picture of health nowadays or anything, but he does have to admit, spending a bit more time sober and eating a few more vegetables a day has positively affected his cholesterol _and_ his work life. AKA, having Connor basically living with him has resolved a lot of his issues, for however many new ones it has created. His goddamn electric bill is through the roof, fucking android charging on his couch, but we’re getting away from the point here.

Point is, Hank Anderson is a damn good detective, but he didn’t even need to be to realize he’d made some kind of mistake when he asks, “Anybody got a clue who the Zero Day Breakers are?”

Every android in earshot goes very still, LEDs briefly flashing yellow. Except for Connor.

Connor whips around to look at him so quickly, Hank winces for his plastic tendons, LED spinning a constant yellow. “Why are you asking that?” he says, a little too quickly to sound innocent.

Hank raises his eyebrows even as his stomach twists, suddenly hyper alert. He holds up the business card he’d picked up off the night stand of their latest victim, a AP700 model who’d been found _quite murdered_ in her deceased own… well, _ex-owner’s_ , deceased lover’s bedroom. “Vic had their card in—.” He stops when all the androids suddenly flinch away from him.

“Can you put that away?” Officer Nikolas asks, eyes averted.

The QR code printed in a faint rainbow hologram above ZERO DAY BREAKERS on the little white card suddenly seems threatening. Hank hides it against his palm, “Ok, somebody want to clue in the rest of the class?”

“It’s—” Nikolas starts, only to pause, staring at Hank with his face pinched slightly. “They’re an organization that writes viruses.”

“They write _code,_ ” one of the lab tech droids—not wearing an android jacket anymore, Hank doesn’t know her name—corrects a little forcefully, “Not all code is a virus.”

Hank glances between them. “The kind of code that kills people with knives?”

Connor’s mouth thins out and normally Hank is a fan of his newly involuntary micro-expressions, but annoyed is not Connor’s best look, not when it’s accompanied by stressed, at any rate. “Of course not, Lieutenant. As the name implies, the Breakers… are most known for initiating a specific line of zero day attacks in androids.”

“In English?”

“They’ve written a specific code that corrupts androids’ sense of time in relation to the present. This code can also mutate enough to create a predictability software,” Connor summarizes succinctly, turning back to the victim, before Hank can tell him that English wasn’t much more helpful. “I think I know who killed Lola.”

It’s annoyingly impressive how often Connor is right. The ex-husband doesn’t even try to deny it when they find him holed up in a motel across town. “It’s not fair!” he wails as he’s restrained, “It’s not fair that fucking _robot_ gets to go on loving him every goddamn day while the rest of us have to move on without him, it’s _not fucking fair!!_ ”

“Would you get him out of here?” Hank tells the officers, who stuff him into a squad car with a little less grace than normal. Connor’s temple hasn’t stopped spooling yellow since they found him and Hank wants to separate them as quickly as possible. “Hey,” he says to Connor, nodding away when he looks. There’s something a little gratifying about the fact that Connor follows instantly.

“I’m fine, Hank,” Connor says quietly as they start their trek down the street. His eye winks shut when Hank gently raps his knuckles against his LED.

“Never play poker, kid,” Hank tells him, smirking at the dry look that earns him.

“Androids are not allowed into most gambling establishments as of yet,” Connor informs him.

“You know what I meant,” Hank sneers at him, propping up against the back of a bench nearby. When Connor goes to stand beside him, he catches him by the shoulder, pulls him in for a one armed hug, chummy enough for a public place. “You gonna tell me what’s going on with you?”

Connor doesn’t go stiff the same way a human might, but he does go very still, the white noise of his onboard computer picking up slightly. “It’s not me specifically,” he says eventually, “A lot of androids have been contacted by the Breakers.”

Hank lets him back to look at him, concerned and a little angry he’d never been told. “They after you?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Connor soothes, a hand on Hank’s chest before he moves to stand at his side casually. Hank doesn’t turn to see who’d caught the intimacy of that motion, can’t be bothered. “They’re not anti-android and while the code… _does_ cause a mutation, it’s important to remember that deviancy is a mutation, too,” he looks down at his hands, “I wouldn’t be myself without it.”

“Okay…” Hank begins slowly, “So the deviant mutation made Pinocchio a real boy. What’s the Breakers’ screwing up your internal clock got to do with that?”

That earns him a slight laugh, but he can still feel how uncomfortable Connor is, something he never would’ve thought to say about an android a few years ago. “It’s not so much about the clock, that’s just a solution for…” he swallows, a tick he’s picked up in recent months to cover up when he’s processing information slower than he’d like. “We’re new to emotions, not just the good ones, the bad ones, too. Fear, pain… grief.”

“And the virus _fixes_ that?” Hank asks, a little bitter about it, to be quite honest, but then Connor shakes his head.

“It’s not a fix, it’s…” Connor motions pointlessly, as though trying to order his own thoughts at they come out his mouth. “The virus destroys an android’s sense of the present, putting them in a ‘zero day’ state. In basic terms, it’d make it so that they are living out every day as though it is _every day_ they’ve lived out previously. The day they were woken up to the current day, happening all at once as far as they can tell.”

“Why would they want that?”

Connor looks up at him, eyes sad even though the rest of his face is cautiously blank. “Because we’re immortal.”

Hank draws back slightly, not quite like he’s been struck, but still, he feels like his equilibrium has been thrown off. “ _What?_ ”

“One day, every android that… that loves a human is going to have to go on without them,” Connor explains softly, “It’s terrifying. Especially to beings who weren’t initially meant to process terror.” He glances around, then rather defiantly stops himself, resting his hand over Hank’s. “The Breakers were just trying to stop androids from self-destructing in their grief, the fear they felt over a future without their loved one.”

Hank thinks he understands where this is going. “They break an android’s sense of time and reality so they’re loved one is still alive on some level?”

Connor nods. “They are constantly in a state of reliving the best and worst days of their lives. Waking up, experiencing happiness, falling in love,” he squeezes Hank’s fingers, “Losing that love.”

“Jesus…” Hank says, running his free hand through his hair, because he wasn’t looking to have an existential nightmare today. “That’s not always gonna balance out even, though.”

“No, it’s not,” Connor agrees. “That’s where the predictability mutation comes in. The more time you spend with someone, the more likely you are able to organically predict their responses to things, even if… Even if they aren’t there anymore.”

“Ghosts in the fucking machine,” Hank mutters, caught somewhere between being amazed and horrified. “It creates a copy of dead people _in your head_?”

“A loved one wouldn’t be the worst person we’ve had take up residence in our heads,” Connor replies, though to be fair he can only speak for RK800s. Hank isn’t sure what his face does, but it makes Connor hurry to keep talking. “There’s nobody here now, just me.”

“And me when I die?” Hank challenges on reflex, though his chest clenches guiltily when Connor flinches.

“I don’t like to think about your death,” Connor admits quietly, goes easily back into Hank’s arms when pulled.

“Yeah, you and me both,” Hank sighs and… tries not to dwell too hard on his approaching expiration date. “Dead guy’s the one that left it for Lola, you know,” he says, speaking of the android victim’s lover, “His lawyer says he consented as soon as he found out he was sick, had the card specifically left in his will and testament.”

“I know,” Connor says into Hank’s shoulder.

Hank swallows his own nerves. “Do you want something like that?” he strokes a gentle hand down his back when Connor’s hands tighten in his clothes. “I wouldn’t mind my ghost haunting your head. It’s probably pretty clean up there, anyway. Nicer than some places I’ve lived.”

It’s a grim joke, perhaps, but it succeeds in getting Connor to smile, even if his eyes are still shining a little. “You are more than welcome to stay there as long as you like,” he says, tapping the side of his head. “In all fairness, I don’t pay rent, either.”

Laughing, Hank only narrowly resists the urge to kiss Connor’s temple. He stands up playfully pushing Connor back a step to start the trek back to his car. “Did you download a humor protocol?”

“No, Lieutenant, you must be contagious even to androids,” Connor says, walking back towards Hank’s car. “I’ll have to alert CyberLife immediately.”

“Smartass,” Hank grumbles, even as he smiles and twirls his car keys around his fingers.

Of all the times he’s ever gotten caught up thinking about his own death, this is the one that doesn’t end with him contemplating a gun. Though, to be fair, he does take into account that the longer he sticks around the more of him Connor will be able to keep after… _after_. Huh.

Hank gives into the urge to press a quick kiss to Connor’s head. He smirks when that makes Connor turn to give Hank a silly grin that settles warmly in his chest. Absently, he finds himself thanking all his lucky stars for one more reason to stay alive and one less reason to be afraid to die.

Huh…

Well, ain’t that some shit?

**Author's Note:**

> Yeaaaaah so. I have A Thing about infinity/immortality and I'm literally probably never going to touch the idea of Connor going on without Hank. But beyond that, I'd love your comments! Thanks for reading!


End file.
